Metallica arrives on Spotify

We already heard today that Spotify has hit 5 million paid subscribers worldwide, but this next bit of news might just be bigger, depending on your music tastes. It turns out that today is the day Metallica's full music library goes live on Spotify. That means you can now listen each and every one of the legendary band's songs for free.

Of course, Metallica will be getting a cut of the money from those advertisements that will play every once in a while as you're listening, so this is a beneficial relationship for both the band and for Spotify. This is notable because of Lars Ulrich's campaign against piracy, which was running strong back around the time Napster was at its peak. Interestingly enough, Ulrich and former Napster head Sean Parker appeared on stage today to announce the addition of Metallica to the Spotify library.

Up on stage, Ulrich said that his battle against piracy wasn't about the money, but rather about control. Just the same, Parker said that the idea behind Napster wasn't simply "free music" but freedom in general. Parker reiterated that he never intended Napster to be about theft, despite the fact that many people used the service for music piracy.

In any case, it appears that the two former enemies have since made good, and Ulrich appears very pleased with the fact that Metallica's library can now be found on Spotify. The Spotify Android app is available now on the Google Play Store [download link], so be sure to give it a download if you haven't already. Who's ready to listen to some metal?